Enacting a Grand Challenge for Business and Society: Theorizing Issue Maturation in the Media-Based Public Discourse on COVID-19 in Three National Contexts

Data Collection

We collected media articles and documents generated by public authorities in Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom in the period between the first international mentioning of COVID-19 in the international media (December 31, 2019) and the first imposition of lockdowns in these countries: in Switzerland on March 16, 2020; in Germany on March 22, 2020; and in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2020. To explore variations in these countries’ institutional responses to COVID-19, we also gathered documentary data in the form of press releases from Swiss, German, and U.K. authorities. In addition, we included and cross-checked press releases both from federal governments and from ministries of health, commerce, and international affairs to capture a diverse range of institutional responses.

We selected articles from leading newspapers in these three countries to analyze dynamics in the content, structure, emphasis, and frequency of references to COVID-19 in the media-based public discourse of these countries, respectively. Our decision to focus on news media is justified by the evidence that traditional media outlets in societies with pluralistic media systems continue to shape news and serve the public interest in facilitating political will-formation (Napoli, 2019). Empirical research has shown that traditional news media still matter a great deal (Langer & Gruber, 2021) even in the age of digital and social media (Neresini & Lorenzet, 2016; Newman et al., 2021), playing an especially central role as sources of information in times of crisis (Strauß & Jonkman, 2017; Vogler & Eisenegger, 2021). Such traditional media is relevant for our research purpose, moreover, since any buzz from social media and other arenas of public discourse, including governmental and judiciary spheres, tends to be swiftly picked up by traditional media and thereby gain the attention of society at large (Austin et al., 2012).

We aimed to cover a wide spectrum of political orientations in our selection of news media, choosing one leading newspaper from the conservative spectrum in each country (i.e., The Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [FAZ], and Neue Zürcher Zeitung [NZZ]), and one from the liberal spectrum each (i.e., The Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung [SZ], and Tages-Anzeiger). Based on evidence that tabloid newspapers tend to reach broader social milieus, we also selected one leading tabloid per country (i.e., The Sun, Bild, and Blick; Esser, 1999). ¹ Our selection was furthermore informed by the need to include opinion-leader media (Brosius & Weimann, 1996), that is, media which serve as agenda-setters for themes subsequently picked up by other media and by societal discourse at large. To account for the considerable influence of local and regional news sources on broader media-based public discourse (Oliver & Myers, 1999), we also included local and regional news from the selected media outlets.

We selected the following search terms for the titles of articles: corona* or covid* or sars* or lock* or pandem* or epidem* or infec* (and equivalent terms in German language). Seeking only information-rich articles, we excluded any duplicates or articles below 175 words, resulting in a total of 1,505 articles retrieved through a systematic Factiva search. To assess the relative importance of these in the media-based public discourse of the three countries, we used the online tool SharedCount, which assesses such importance based on social media reactions, including likes, shares, and comments (Day et al., 2014; Xu, 2021). By only including articles with an above-average number of social media reactions, we ultimately selected a total of 603 articles comprising 1,380 pages of data.

Data Analysis

Our comparative analysis of variations in the media-based public discourse of the three countries and their institutional responses to the pandemic included four main steps characterized by back-and-forth consultation between the data, the identification of explanatory patterns, and consulting prior literatures (Timmermans & Travory, 2012). In the first step, we explored and tracked differences in the countries’ institutional responses as proxy variables for the increasing construction of COVID-19 as a GC, subsequently cross-checking our systematization with Hale et al.’s (2021) indices for the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. To analyze these responses systematically, we developed a 12-stage ordinal scale of their relative harshness based on the implications of each measure for individual freedoms, classifying harshness along two dimensions, that is, the number of people affected and the implications for freedom of movement (with a Stage 1 classification indicating very minor implications for freedom of movement for a very small number of people and a Stage 12 classification indicating severe implications for freedom of movement for a very large number of people). To simplify our classification of institutional responses, we developed four broader categories of harshness subsuming several stages, as shown in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Systematic Classification of Institutional Responses.

Categories	Stages
Enabling measures	1 financial support for specific industries
	2 general financial aid packages
Restrictions on travel	3 restrictions on incoming travel
	4 travel warnings
	5 evacuations
Suggestions to restrict the movement of citizens within their own country	6 advisory cancelations of events
	7 advisory social-distancing measures
Restrictions on movement within the country and in relation to neighboring countries	8 local restrictions on freedom of movement
	9 prohibitions of events
	10 closures of borders
	11 restricted opening of institutions
	12 restrictions on personal movement

In our second step of the analysis, two authors separately undertook in-depth line-by-line coding (Charmaz, 2006) of 60 randomly selected newspaper articles (representing about 10 percent of our dataset) to allow for the emergence of explanatory patterns and to reduce the influence of any preconceived ideas (Walsh et al., 2015). After comparing and discussing our coding to make collective sense of any emerging differences, the first author developed an initial codebook (Charmaz, 2006), using NVivo software to ensure consistency and further systematize our coding. This codebook was then tested and enriched through numerous iterations using approximately 150 newspaper articles.

In addition to fine-grained line-by-line coding, we employed a rigor-without-rigor-mortis approach as the third step of our analysis (Eisenhardt et al., 2016). This approach proposes that reading a whole dataset to gain an initial broad comprehension can help researchers confronted with highly complex data to derive categories from the contextuality and relationality of broader text passages, interpret first relations between codes, and develop first impressions of the most relevant codes (Eisenhardt et al., 2016). To analyze our data holistically in this way, we grouped our data according to time and country contexts and read them through as a whole (Gabriel et al., 2010). This enabled us to refine our codebook further in two main ways, as elucidated below:

In a fourth step, we applied the codebook to the analysis of all 603 articles and created separate timelines for each country to trace the coding of these articles back to the date of their first appearance. We then compared and contrasted the detailed timelines of the three country contexts to derive a data structure with higher levels of aggregation and theoretical abstraction. In this way, we identified systematic relationships in the data from all three countries between the appearance and disappearance of codes and the introduction of institutional responses. Informed by the literature on issue maturation, and specifically the scholarship on social problem work, we then began collectively theorizing these systematic relationships, while iteratively checking back-and-forth with our data. Having identified and coalesced 54 first-order codes into 10 second-order themes, further theorization and abstraction led us to integrate these second-order themes into four aggregate dimensions that serve as the main explanatory mechanisms of our theorizing for the maturation of issues toward GCs. (See Appendix A for examples of the evidence on which we based our codes.) ²

Institutional Responses

Figure 2 presents the detailed timeline we derived from our data of institutional responses in Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with these responses serving as proxies indicating the respective maturation of COVID-19 into a GC in each country. As this figure shows, although the same institutional responses to COVID-19 eventually came to be introduced in Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the timing of their introduction differed significantly.

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Figure 2.

Developments of institutional responses in Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Mechanisms of the Construction of COVID-19 as a GC in the Media-Based Public Discourse

Below we first present the key findings from our analysis of the media-based public discourse in the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom by describing how the four aggregate dimensions we identified in our data played out differently across these countries (i.e., perceived degree of affectedness, orientation toward the collective, tolerance for ambiguity, and discourse quality; see Figure 3).

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Figure 3.

Data structure.

Discourse Quality as a Context Condition of Issue Maturation

In addition to the three social problem work mechanisms we abstracted from our data analysis, we further identified discourse quality as a crucial context condition that significantly affected the issue maturation of COVID-19 in being more or less facilitative of the attainment of collectively shared understandings of new issues and their construction as GCs (Voß et al., 2006). Defined as the extent to which a society’s media-based public discourse adopts a constructive approach to politics that encourages wide participation, offers justifications for claims and strives for common ground, mutual respect, and authenticity (Steenbergen et al., 2003), discourse quality constitutes the context or discursive environment in which the social problem work mechanisms of perceived degree of affectedness, orientation toward the collective, and tolerance of ambiguity unfold. As such, discourse quality determines whether and to what extent opposing claims concerning an issue can be dealt with on the basis of reason and argumentation or on strategic influence, emotions, and ideologies. We identified two main categories of processing controversies in media-based public discourse surrounding COVID-19: (a) deliberative processing through argumentative engagement with opposing positions, either through (1) consensus-seeking or (2) compromise-seeking; and (b) polarized processing of controversies without argumentative engagement and with no mutual respect for opposing parties and their arguments (see also Steenbergen et al., 2003).

We conceptualize the first category of discursive processing as a consensus-seeking form of discourse that acknowledges the validity of different positions and tolerates controversy in seeking an argumentative settlement based on the better argument (Dryzek & Pickering, 2017). In reflexive discourse, actors actively justify and revise their positions in the light of emerging new evidence and knowledge (Steenbergen et al., 2003), willingly reformulating their positions through self-scrutiny to render them more acceptable to opposing parties, with reflexivity understood as “the ability of a structure, process, or set of ideas to reconfigure itself in response to reflection on its performance” (Dryzek & Pickering, 2017, p. 353). A key aim of reflexive discourse is to establish common ground to allow for decisions on specific courses of action through jointly navigating the tensions between the need for diversity and communality. A case in point can be seen in the way questions as to the priority of safeguarding negative freedoms first emerged in the Swiss media-based public discourse in late February even as criticisms were mounting that stricter measures would harm negative freedoms and result in a “conflict of interests in which the closure of borders would inflict unbearable harm on the freedom of each and every citizen” (NZZ, February 24, 2020). As this example shows, claims and counterclaims in the Swiss public discourse included an acknowledgment of conflicts of interests and argumentative engagement with opposing positions, leading to a broadening of the debate as conflicting criteria of worth competed for dominance in interpretations. Modes of reflexive discourse can also be observed in the way the perceived degree of affectedness of COVID-19 was discussed in Switzerland primarily through engagement with the different arguments of opposing parties. In an article in Tages-Anzeiger from January 29, for example, criticism of Switzerland’s preparedness in view of the assumed close territorial proximity of COVID-19 was balanced by engagement with opposing arguments, including the following concession:

“The likelihood of an infection through a Chinese tourist is very low,” says Daniel Koch. This is because an infection requires very close contact and one would need to be closer than one meter to the infected person. (Tages-Anzeiger, January 29, 2020)

Only after presenting opposing arguments did this article conclude that “however, infections could appear in Switzerland at a later point in time.” Importantly, this deliberative discourse was not aimed at reaching a compromise between parties but rather at assessing the validity of competing arguments (e.g., in arguing that the positions taken by “Corona-Denialists are questionable, as their premises are wrong”; Tages-Anzeiger, March 6, 2020). Another example of this discursive aim can be seen in much later changes in U.K. media-based public discourse regarding the primacy of negative freedoms, with articles from March 17 onward increasingly questioning the primacy of negative freedoms and self-governance (The Times, March 18, 2020) over the need for a “united national effort” (The Guardian, March 10, 2020). An initially highly polarized debate thus shifted from this point onward to a discussion in which the arguments of opposing parties came to be properly heard and evaluated, thereby enabling the best-argued positions to gain greater traction, including growing calls for a united national effort (for further evidence, see Appendix A). From this, we conclude that reflexive discourse facilitates faster issue maturation, as is evident from the significantly more rapid construction of COVID-19 as a GC in the Swiss media-based public discourse.

The second mode of deliberative processing of discursive controversy we identified took the form of compromise-seeking through homogenizing efforts aimed at attaining a common understanding by incorporating all different standpoints and reducing controversies (Furnari, 2014). For example, the German media-based public discourse regarding negative freedoms was primarily oriented toward seeking compromise in arguing that the social consequences of the pandemic meant “we have to take decisions all together” (SZ, March 9, 2020) and that “we now have to discuss as a whole society and need to agree on what we are all okay with giving up to tackle the virus” (SZ, March 9, 2020). Advocates of harsh measures thus sought to achieve compromise by incorporating certain points from opposing positions in their arguments, including the importance placed on protecting negative freedoms (SZ, March 13, 2020; FAZ, March 9, 2020). Such compromise-seeking was also evident in the German public discourse around the primacy-versus-non-primacy of economic interests, with articles framing the government’s actions as consistent with the “aim of the government to compromise between protecting the economy and stopping further spread of the virus” (Bild, March 10, 2020). In the United Kingdom, such compromise-seeking discourse only began to prevail from March 17 onward as the previously polarized debate on the primacy of economic interests shifted toward argumentation that acknowledged the economic costs of restrictive measures while justifying these costs as reasonable compared with the public-health risks of not imposing such measures (The Guardian, March 20, 2020).

Comparing the discourse quality of the three countries, it becomes evident that the compromise-seeking structure of media-based public discourse in Germany facilitated a steady and gradual rather than rapid process of issue maturation.

In polarized discourse, participants do not engage in argumentation with respect for opposing positions. As defined by McCoy et al. (2018, p. 16): “Polarization is a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in a society increasingly align along a single dimension and people increasingly perceive of and describe politics and society in terms of ‘Us’-versus-‘Them’.” Participants in polarized discourse thus typically place little value on mutual respect for opposing arguments in debate, do not seek to justify their positions, and show no willingness to revise their initial stances as new arguments and evidence arise (Steenbergen et al., 2003). Such processing was especially evident in the U.K. public discourse regarding the extent of the country’s preparedness to tackle the pandemic and the issue’s perceived degree of affectedness. Unlike the confidence still evinced in the Swiss and German discourse at this early stage, questions were first raised in the United Kingdom about national preparedness in the last week of January, with one article quoting the Leader of the Opposition as saying that “Labour asks the government to reassure the public about NHS capacities in case the virus reaches the UK” (The Guardian, January 26, 2020). The voicing of such concerns provoked further polarized debate at this point, with opposing camps restating their opinions without engaging in mutually respectful consideration of different positions and competing arguments. As a consequence, minority opinions failed to be considered and the initial construction that the country was well-prepared continued to prevail, with the U.K. government frequently cited in the media as “closely monitoring the situation” and “taking all precautions” while claiming the “risk to the public remains low” (The Guardian, January 26, 2020). The U.K. public discourse surrounding the primacy of protecting negative freedoms also became highly polarized, with opposing camps not engaging in argumentation but primarily restating their positions, especially in debates about the threat of mass surveillance (The Times, March 5, 2020) and the importance of citizens’ self-governance (The Times, March 17, 2020).

The media-based public discourse in the United Kingdom regarding the willingness of actors to serve the common good in responding to the pandemic also became polarized, with claims that key actors were acting out of self-interest persisting until at least March 17 (The Guardian, March 20, 2020), although counterarguments to such claims first appeared from March 8 (The Guardian, March 8, 2020; The Times, March 9, 2020). In this discourse, actors justified their positions by reference to authorities (e.g., “the science”) rather than engaging in in-depth argumentation. For example, the U.K. government was often cited as asserting that all its actions were “guided by the science” (The Times, March 13, 2020) or based on the advice of the World Health Organization, typically without offering any further rationale (The Times, February 27, 2020). Instead of argumentative engagement with differing positions, perceptions of opposing parties were often expressed in ever-more aggressive language. In an article in The Guardian on February 29, for example, one NHS doctor was cited as accusing the U.K. government of having “no idea of the problem” of people returning from “affected areas”, while another was quoted as criticizing the government and members of the public: “It’s a no-brainer, the government need to tell those who are coming back what to do . . . There seems to be an attitude [among returning travellers] of: ‘We don’t care if we infect a whole GP surgery full of people.’”

Polarization was also evident in Swiss discourse regarding the primacy of economic interests, with opposing positions frequently asserted without any attempt at argumentative engagement. While blunt claims were made on one side that the proposed “measures are crazy” and that “the existence of thousands of companies is at risk for the sake of safeguarding only a small minority” (Blick, March 16, 2020), counterclaims likewise failed to offer much argumentative engagement, as in the retort that company representatives should simply “stop complaining but be happy that restaurants have been open until now” (Blick, March 16, 2020).

Based on the fact that the U.K. media-based public discourse was characterized primarily by polarization and that the maturation of COVID-19 into a GC was slowest in the United Kingdom, we identify a systematic relationship between polarized discourse structures and the pace of issue maturation.

Perceived Degree of Affectedness as a Mechanism of GC Construction

Our study confirms that the perceived degree of affectedness of an issue, that is, the extent to which it is constructed as directly affecting a population, serves as a key mechanism of social problem work driving the construction of an issue into a GC. This finding is supported by our data in the systematic relation we identify between a relatively high perceived degree of affectedness vis-a-vis COVID-19 and the speed with which measures to tackle the pandemic were intensified beyond travel restrictions to include limitations on citizens’ freedom of movement within their own countries (see Figures 1a-c). In theorizing this systematic relationship, we draw from social problem work scholarship that has found issues are more likely to become conceived of as social problems if audiences believe claims that these issues will have direct adverse consequences for them. By increasing the perceived degree of affectedness of an issue, arousing fears and concerns fosters people’s willingness to counter an issue to protect themselves and their loved ones (Miller & Holstein, 1989). In our data, the growing perception that almost everyone, also oneself and people’s loved ones could be affected by COVID-19 corresponded with an increasing acknowledgment that COVID-19 was not a contained local Chinese problem but need to be seen instead as a widespread issue (Gümüsay et al., 2022). ⁵ In sum, we find that claims in the media-based public discourse fostering a high perceived degree of affectedness led to an intensified construction of COVID-19 as a GC, paving the way for the swifter imposition of harsh measures.

Orientation the Collective as a Mechanism of GC Construction

Co-occurring with a high perceived degree of affectedness, a high degree of orientation toward the collective in the media-based public discourse further facilitated the construction of COVID-19 not only as widespread but also as a complex and evaluative issue. Orientation toward the collective was thus evident in our data as a key social problem work mechanism driving the construction of COVID-19 as a GC, corresponding with and reflected by certain escalations in measures. Such orientation itself depends on a high degree of trust in the willingness of actors to serve the common good and a lower prioritization of economic interests and negative freedoms. Conversely, a lower degree of orientation toward the collective in the media-based public discourse corresponded with higher levels of distrust in actors’ willingness to serve the common good and a higher prioritization of negative freedoms and economic interests. We thus identify and theorize a systematic relationship between a high degree of orientation toward the collective and the swifter imposition of increasingly harsh measures, as elucidated below.

Scholars of social problem work (Loseke, 2008) have emphasized the centrality of “motivational claims” (p. 76) in the construction of issues as social problems. By presenting new criteria of worth and constructing issues as problems that would be morally wrong to leave unaddressed, motivational claims encourage emotional responses among audiences (Loseke, 2008), thereby facilitating a reassessment of values and perceptions. To be effective in bringing about an orientation toward the collective, therefore, claims about an issue must indicate that specific conditions call for a reassessment of prevailing “cultural themes” (i.e., contextually and historically specific perceptions about how the world should work, Loseke, 2008, p. 64). Our data confirm the centrality of such reassessments in attaining orientation toward the collective and thus in the maturation of COVID-19 into a GC, including reassessments of the cultural themes of capitalism (e.g., through discussions about the primacy of economic interests) and individualism (e.g., through discussions about negative freedoms and the state-citizen relationship). These reassessments corresponded with a high degree of orientation toward the collective because such orientation holds the common good to be the primary criterion of worth and the main moral ground of evaluation, thereby increasing the likelihood of an issue being constructed as a morally intolerable threat that must be acted upon. The importance of shifts in criteria of worth in the construction of GCs has previously been identified in the works of Ferraro et al. (2015), who highlight “evaluativity” (p. 368) as a defining characteristic of GCs. Our findings are also consistent with recent scholarship on framing dynamics that has emphasized the importance of emotional attachment (Klein & Amis, 2021; Reinecke & Ansari, 2021) and the connectivity of certain frames with ideologies held by agenda-setters at individual (micro) level (Benford & Snow, 2000; Klein & Amis, 2021) thus increasing the likelihood of constructing new issues as collective action frames.

The relationship we identify between a high degree of orientation toward the collective and the imposition of increasingly harsh measures in response to COVID-19 can further be explained by drawing again on theories in the social problem work literature which propose that an issue is more likely to be constructed as a social problem when it is seen as affecting multiple fields of society and multiple cultural themes at the same time (Loseke, 2008). For example, the extension of COVID-19-related discussions beyond health concerns to economic and social concerns helped the issue mature in public construction into an increasingly complex issue (Ferraro et al., 2015). In sum, we conclude that orientation toward the collective intensifies the maturation of issues as GCs by increasing their construction as both complex and morally concerning (Ferraro et al., 2015; Schoeneborn et al., 2022).

Tolerance of Ambiguity as a Mechanism of GC Construction

In addition to and in combination with a high perceived degree of affectedness and a high orientation toward the collective, our data show that a high degree of tolerance of ambiguity served as a third key mechanism driving the construction of COVID-19 as a GC. This can be observed, for example, in the fact that decisions at national level to impose strict lockdowns were only reached after such tolerance had been attained (i.e., after accepting the ambiguity of current knowledge about COVID-19) and calling for preventive thinking in the face of uncertainty had come to the fore in media-based public discourse in the respective countries (see Figure 1a–c).

To explain and theorize the systematic relationship between a high level of tolerance of ambiguity and decisions to impose lockdowns, we again draw from and build on the social problem work literature and the evidence it has provided of how the construction of issues as social problems typically depends upon people believing in claims that depict a dark future if no action is taken to tackle them (Benford, 2002; Loseke, 2008). In addition, the literature on strategic issue management can further help explain how the acceptance of ambiguity regarding knowledge is central to issue maturation (Schreyögg & Steinmann, 1987). Proceeding from the premise that knowledge is inevitably ambiguous in the context of rapidly evolving and dynamic issues, this scholarship has shown how such uncertainty does not allow for planning but instead requires risk-taking and ambiguity-tolerant sensemaking of issues (Schreyögg & Steinmann, 1987); this comes close, for instance, to the recent call by the German Ethics Council that the media-based public discourse needs to develop tolerance for science’s inherent “epistemic vulnerability” (Deutscher Ethikrat, 2022, p. 136). Our observation that a higher tolerance of ambiguity fosters a greater collective understanding of issues even in the face of uncertainty regarding the future relates to the finding in the literature on GCs that uncertainty is a defining characteristic of GCs (Ferraro et al., 2015). By demonstrating the important role played by claims that foster tolerance for ambiguity in intensifying the construction of issues as GCs and thus leading to swifter and harsher countermeasures, we address a gap in research that has primarily emphasized the role of expert opinions in facilitating the construction of social problems as GCs (Loseke, 2008).

Discourse Quality as a Context Condition of Enacting GCs

In contrast to the three key social problem work mechanisms outlined above, the crucial context condition of discourse quality does not concern the question of what is being said in media-based public discourse nor add to what is said but instead determines how things are said and how different opposing claims are processed. Because issue maturation depends on developing collectively consensual understandings of issues, this context condition can either facilitate or hinder the construction of an issue as a GC. This is evident from our empirical observation that countries with a higher quality of media-based public discourse proved faster and more effective in constructing a common understanding of COVID-19 as a GC, with Switzerland attaining such understanding most rapidly through consensus-seeking discourse, Germany a little later through compromise-seeking discourse, and the U.K. latest of all on account of its rather polarizing discourse.

In identifying that consensus-seeking discourse facilitates a more rapid attainment of collective understanding, our analysis aligns with literature on public discourse and collective decision-making that emphasizes the importance of media-based public discourse as a process that can facilitate or impede collective understanding, including the recognition, definition, and evaluation of collective problems (Dryzek, 2010; Dryzek & Pickering, 2017; Habermas, 1998). This observation further corresponds with claims in this scholarship that the rapid collective construction of issues as GCs and the acceptance of potentially controversial but effective responses to such issues is best facilitated by consensus-seeking discourse that incorporates mutual respect and the rational justification of multiple viewpoints, since this discourse structure allows for the most effective responses to prevail even if based on arguments initially espoused by a minority (Steenbergen et al., 2003). Compromise-seeking as a discourse form, by contrast, has been found to be less effective in this regard because such discourse is not driven by a search for the better argument but rather by the aims of avoiding conflict and wielding strategic influence, typically combined with a lack of willingness to change and revise positions in the light of new arguments, evidence, insights, and interests related to the issue at hand (Chambers, 2003; Dryzek & Pickering, 2017; Habermas, 2021). This is in line with our findings showing that persistent efforts in the German media-based public discourse to include status-quo-based considerations rendered it difficult for the issue to mature quickly enough into the acknowledgment of a GC since this discursive form did not easily allow for new positions to gain dominance. Instead, new constructions were constantly balanced with the initially unproblematic constructions of the issue, making any rapid change in the prevailing construction unlikely. Our analysis further supports studies in this scholarship that have identified polarizing discourse as an impediment to attaining collective understandings of issues as GCs (McCoy et al., 2018). This is because such discourse reduces argumentative engagement by treating opposing parties as enemies to be diminished rather than as opponents with valid concerns (Habermas, 2021). In turn, this insight is also in line with our observation that trust broke down in the U.K. public discourse, making it difficult to achieve compromise, consensus, or tolerance for contrary views among opposing parties. By hindering the attainment of common ground and devaluing the need for mutual respect and reasoned argumentation, polarized discourses tends to lead to a fragmentation of opinions about issues at individual or group level rather than to collective constructions and agreements on countermeasures (McCoy et al., 2018).

Contributions to Research on GCs

In contrast to the prevalent focus in extant research on GCs on the back-end effects of such challenges and how they can be tackled, we theorize the front-end processes involved in the construction of issues as GCs, thereby addressing an important oversight and gap in extant research (George et al., 2016; Gümüsay et al., 2022; Howard-Grenville & Spengler, 2022). Proceeding from the premise that GCs are neither given nor necessarily considered as GCs from the moment of their initial appearance, our study emphasizes and demonstrates the value of tracing the communicative (co-)construction of GCs over time (Spector & Kitsuse, 1977), thereby building on and extending works that have pointed to the crucial role of communication in ensuring collective orientation toward a GC (Ferraro et al., 2015).

In addition, we show empirically how the social problem work literature can advance understanding among scholars of organization and management regarding the initial construction of issues as social problems by shedding further light on how and why discursive processes in the media-based public discourse facilitate or hinder the maturation of issues into GCs. By affording primacy to the communicative construction of GCs, our theory enables research to focus on the various difficulties that arise from the failure of an issue to attain maturation in media-based public discourse, thus extending the scope of analysis beyond the challenges related to the implementation of measures to tackle GCs. In this way, our theorizing can help explain the maturation paths of current issues that remain largely in a latent or emerging stage. In the same context, our explanatory mechanisms can help us to account retrospectively for why issues such as climate change and the need for poverty alleviation have remained in a latent stage for so long (Zadek, 2004).

Contributions to the Literatures on Issue Maturation and Framing Dynamics

By identifying discourse quality as a crucial but hitherto understudied context condition that can facilitate or hinder the maturation of issues into GCs, we add to the literature on issue maturation and recent research on framing dynamics (Klein & Amis, 2021; Litricio & David, 2017; Reinecke & Ansari, 2021). In identifying this context condition through theorizing the construction of GCs as the outcome of preliminary interactive discursive processes, our study adds specifically to the current literature on framing dynamics by helping explain how and why consensus can arise around new field frames, thus addressing an aspect that has so far received little attention from a framing dynamics perspective (Ansari et al., 2013, p. 1028; Benford & Snow, 2000; Litricio & David, 2017; Reinecke & Ansari, 2021). In particular, we theorize discourse quality as a context condition that strongly influences how competing frames around emerging issues play out against each other, with less polarized discourse being more likely to facilitate consensus in constructing an issue as a GC. On this basis, we call for further research on issue maturation from scholars of framing dynamics, social problem work, and issue management to investigate the discursive processes that guide issue maturation rather than exploring primarily the strategic framing of single actors (Benford & Snow, 2000; Reinecke & Ansari, 2021). Such investigations could usefully include quantitative research to explore the specific relationships between issue maturation and discourse quality.

Finally, our novel theorizing of the importance of discourse quality has important practical implications for future policy-making, including the need to consider long-term investments in safeguarding discourse quality. This would need to include efforts to improve citizens’ social media literacy at the individual micro-level, combined with initiatives to develop innovative modes of governance to tackle the corrosion of discourse quality by the growing spread of disinformation and hate speech at the societal macro-level of public discourse (Cohen & Fung, 2021; Habermas, 2021). Undertaking such efforts to safeguard the quality of media-based public discourse is essential, we argue, to enable societies to cope adequately with the future emergence of sudden and unprecedented GCs, such as COVID-19.